"Yes, ma'am, I reckon. Only thing is, they might take me fer a sheep man. I'd hate that." "Well--even a little dog?" "I'll get you one, any kind you want. I allow myself, a dog is a heap of comfort. I'm about the only homesteader in this valley that ain't got one right now. Some has sever'l." "I can make the coffee, I'm sure," she said, still endeavoring to be of use. But she was skimpy in her measurement, and he reproached her. "That won't make it strong enough. Don't you like it right strong?" "Well, Annie and I," said she honestly, "couldn't afford to make it very strong. Annie was my roommate, you see." "We can afford anything we want out here, ma'am. I got a credit at the store. We're going to make six hundred tons of hay right out there in them medders this summer. We're going to have plenty of money. Hay is mighty high. I can get eight dollars a ton standing out there, and not put a machine into it myself. Wheat is two dollars and twenty cents a bushel, the lowest." "Why, that's fine, that's fine!" said she. "I'm so glad." She knew nothing in the world about hay or wheat. The odors from the stove appealed pleasantly enough to the tired woman who sat on the box chair, in the same place she originally had taken. "Draw up," said Sim Gage. But it was clumsy work for her to eat, newly blind. She was so sensitive that she made no pretence of concealing her tears. "I wouldn't worry none, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "if I could help it. I wouldn't worry any more'n I could help, anyways. I'll put things where you can find 'em, and pretty soon you'll get used to it." "But at least I can wash the dishes." "That's so," said he. "That's so. I reckon you could do that. It ain't hard." And indeed in due course he made arrangements for that on the table in front of her, so that she might feel easier in being useful. "Why, that isn't the dish pan," said she. Sim Gage flushed with great guiltiness. "No, ma'am, it ain't. It's only the wash pan. Fact is, some one has been in this place since I been away, and they stole my dish pan, the low-down pups. I didn't know as you'd notice the wash pan." "Well, it will do for once," she said dubiously, and so she went on, making good shift, wiping the dishes carefully and placing them before her on the table. Then she laughed. "It was the same with Annie and me--we only had the one pan. Yours is much larger than ours was. I always helped with the dishes." "That's fine," said he. "Do you know, that's the part of keeping house I always hated more'n anything else, just washing dishes." "I almost always did that for Annie and me," said Mary Warren, feeling out with her hands gently and trying to arrange the battered earthenware upon the table. "Now," said Sim Gage, "I reckon I'd better get them new blankets in and make up that bed. Come along, ma'am, and I'll show you." And in spite of all he took her arm and led her to the side of the rude bunk.